Alarm System gone haywire on long trip - disable by leaving FOB inside car?

[dhoerl]

Last night my alarm system went haywire, and between 9PM and 11PM went off 6 times. I was finally alerted to this by the Police who banged on the door at 10:30PM. Every FordPass message was "Mach-E's security system has detected vehicle intrusion and triggered the alarm..."

I just began a 1500 mile trip, and have a heavy package in the "trunk" to deliver near the end. Sigh. Two years with the car, this was the very first alarm. Nothing has changed of late - last OTA update was a week ago and no damage to car. The only other event possibly related to this was that the passenger door was, in a senior moment, left open all night the night before. [I did read a thread where someone said a moth triggered the alarm, but I couldn't find one last night.]

The most troubling thing is that after the Police left, I opened the car to insure no windows were down etc, and when I left I was prompted to disable the motion sensors, and I selected the option to disable. Then, while searching the web, the damn alarm went off again at 11 PM.

So now I'm faced with a serious challenge - how to insure this doesn't happen again (while parked in a hotel/motel parking lot) during the rest of my 10 day trip.

To do the best I can using the standard options, I've:
- disabled the auto-lock on walk away, so I now have to hit the button to lock/unlock
- disabled the prompt to disable the motion sensors (which so many have said only works 50% of the time)
- pledged to remember to always use the Alarm Settings to disable the motion sensors

But maybe the issue is NOT the motions sensors, but the door sensors? I found there is a TSB on random alarm triggering: SSM51292. But really - I've used this car daily for almost two years, the very first alarm happens in a swarm??? Just seems unlikely (but not impossible).

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From my hours of web searching, there is NO way to completely disable the alarms other than unlocking the car, or keeping a FOB in the car. The first option would mean I need to move a 100+lb box every night in and out of the car (along with anything else of value) while the car sits overnight in an unguarded hotel/motel parking lot.

Then I got this idea - the second option above. I leave the FOB in the car, then use the door post to lock the car (7-8 and 9-0 press). Now the alarms should be completely off, right?

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[kodiakng]

you might check out this thread for some insight. it may have been triggered by the door being left open causing the 12v battery to drain too low.

 

[Gimme_my_MME]

The most troubling thing is that after the Police left, I opened the car to insure no windows were down etc, and when I left I was prompted to disable the motion sensors, and I selected the option to disable. Then, while searching the web, the damn alarm went off again at 11 PM.

There is currently a bug in that popup. You have to go in to the settings and turn off the motion sensors and it has to be done every key cycle.

Regarding the bigger issue it sounds like the door being left open was probably the culprit. Even slightly ajar could cause it to trip the alarms

 

[dhoerl]

There is currently a bug in that popup. You have to go in to the settings and turn off the motion sensors and it has to be done every key cycle.

Regarding the bigger issue it sounds like the door being left open was probably the culprit. Even slightly ajar could cause it to trip the alarms

I walked the car after 5th, everything looked good, still got the 6th.

 

[illinirdhd]

Did you figure anything out about this? My alarm has gone off 4x in the last hour, sitting in my office parking lot. There are more cars and people than usual here today, so it's possible they're getting too close to it - but I haven't seen anyone near it. I just moved it, thinking that might reset its brain, but it went off again, just as I got back to my desk. (no updates recently, and no doors have been left open, etc recently)

 

[dhoerl]

There is a software update for this - search around you may find the link. In my case I did discover the cause - a moth. It would only fly around in the night. Also, leaving fob in car did NOT disable the motion alarm!

you can disable the motion detector through the control panel - but need to disable auto lock. You need to always turn the detectors off on each departure as ford reenables them!

others suggest black. electrical tape over sensors didn’t try that.

good luck!

 

[djr]

I suspect, like in other posts that there are 2 sensors. 1. for interior motion, which can be turned off while in the car... but Then there's also the tilt/inclination sensor which gets trigger by heavy outside movement (like on a ferry, or too close heavy truck, or train rattles by, or jacking up the car while it's locked). There doesn't seem to be anyway to turn this off. Some suggest that you can avoid this alarm by leaving your car "on" and disabling the auto 30 minute shutoff, which they say can be found in settings.

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